Do We Need Yoga Classes Dedicated to Women of Color?

"You might not look like the ladies in the magazines while doing this pose and that's okay," my yoga instructor, Calia Marshall, said as we moved into trikonasana, or triangle pose. "We only want you to look like you, exactly as you are." That may sound like a typical yoga class affirmation but here, the words landed with more gravity.

I was attending a once-a-month yoga class called "Brown Sugar: Yoga for Folks of Color." Instead of a studio, we were in the Museum of African Contemporary Diasporan Arts, surrounded by paintings, sculptures, and multimedia. I had received a Facebook invite from a friend and was intrigued first by the class's title, and then by its description: "Folks of color need a healing space where they don't have to worry about being 'othered.' Because racism exists within the world and within the yoga community. Because people of color are hugely underrepresented in yoga studios, so we're letting it be known that there's a space for us too."

Calia Marshall teaching a Brown Sugar: Yoga for Folks of Color class.

Savanna Ruedy

Marshall began the class with her students gathered in a circle. The circle was made up of the most diverse people I have ever encountered in a yoga class, not a single white person in sight, aside from the photographer I brought along. "What makes you feel most at home?" Marshall asked, and we remained, sit-bones on floor, until everyone had answered. While I admired the unique camaraderie and community building, I also felt hints of discomfort from moments of unfamiliarity. Marshall, for instance, instructed us to freestyle and dance with our neighbors. During savasana, the final resting pose, a didgeridoo player waved the giant instrument over our prone bodies.

But the way this class really broke away from molds was in its explicit awareness of ethnicity and cultural identity, the sense that yogis of color need a separate space to practice fully and peacefully. Marshall shared an experience in which a yoga instructor had the class mime putting on a headdress then asked them to bounce up and down "like Indians," while making "Indian" sounds. Another class attendee talked about confronting a studio owner about a lack of diversity in her photos. One other attendee said she only felt comfortable in a room when there were at least three other black people present. Everyone nodded in understanding, and all expressed that they often don't have the space to speak about these experiences.

But is the answer to create a separate space? This kind of question isn't entirely new, either. Do you engender a more woman-friendly campus by creating a women's studies department? Or does this just sideline studies that should be firmly ensconced in the history or social science department?

In Marshall's opinion at least, the answer is yes. "In yoga and wellness, there's a certain face and body type you see projected, which is white, thin women. When you don't see yourself in a community or practice, you're less likely to show up there," Marshall said to me after class. "Racism is huge–huge–and it shows up all the time, and if you are not a person of color, that's not something you have to pay attention to." She continued, "To have a space where you can come and have other people look like you takes some of the pressure off."

I'm adding to this revolution. It almost feels dramatic to name it as such, but it really is when you're taking an entire practice that is hundreds of thousands of years old and using it as a tool to resist oppression, a tool to feel liberated.

There is a growing recognition of the desire to provide those types of spaces. In Chicago, Lauren Ash founded Black Girl In Om, a collective of classes, health workshops, and an online publication, in 2014. In Atlanta, Chelsea Jackson Roberts runs the blog Chelsea Loves Yoga and started the Red Clay Yoga organization in 2015 in order to bring the tools of yoga to youth and marginalized communities, topics she studied for her doctoral dissertation. The organization is not explicit about serving people of color only, but Jackson has been specific when talking about her attendees. In a recent event recap, she said that she hopes girls attending class will "use their yoga practices to think critically about their experiences in this world as young, black women."

Students at Red Clay's Yoga, Literature, & Art Camp

Red Clay Yoga

Both Ash and Roberts explained that the racial dynamics of their respective cities influenced their decision to found yoga classes for people of color. "Atlanta, in particular... has had a very deeply ingrained culture of separation, racially and socio-economically," Roberts says. Roberts also hosts the Yoga, Literature and Art Camp for teen girls aged 13 to 17, who Roberts describes as "primarily black and Latina girls." At one point, the students were creating vision boards, and they kept making comments about not seeing images in yoga of women who look like them. Ash shares similar sentiments: "Chicago is incredibly diverse, but it is really segregated. So, to be able to really allow for a space where you can connect with other people about wellness ... while you might be experiencing microaggressions, or racism, or any form of discrimination, it's just a really powerful thing," she said.

"If we're just going to be out there screaming, yelling, and saying 'You're so messed up world,' we become burned out. We need to find spaces where we rejuvenate."

Marshall has a similar impetus. "Violence that's happening in our country has always been there," she says when asked whether the current social climate–racially charged police brutality, increased media coverage of cultural appropriation, an incessant stream of identity-politics online arguments–had anything to do with the founding of Brown Sugar. "I think that the time is right for really putting voice to the injustice happening in the world." There are ways of doing this, she says, that are "active" and then there are "quieter ways": "If we're just going to be out there screaming, yelling, and saying 'You're so messed up world,' we become burned out. We need to find spaces where we rejuvenate…and have that energy to work together to fight the injustices of the world."

Black Girl In Om

King Texas

All three instructors brought up the backlash they've experienced for starting their respective groups, but these women stand by the need for programs like theirs. "Why is it not that shocking when we are inundated with images...of white people?" Roberts says. It is important, she continues, "to have a dedicated space where privilege and not having privilege are actually valued or acknowledged." Ash recalled an online comment asserting that everyone should practice together. "In a perfect world, I think that would be true if things like racism and sexism didn't exist. We live in this world where unfortunately some of us don't feel like we can be our authentic selves. To really be able to go to a space that you know is for you and you can just show up and be yourself is really powerful and important. It's not about separating and saying those places are out to get us. You feel like you're at home when you know you can have a conversation about what you may have experienced and not have someone questioning your valid experience." Marshall says that the people who criticize Brown Sugar should listen to those who are using the program: "It's important to listen to people, to value them saying there's a need for this space means that there's a need for this space."

Calia Marshall, Chelsea Roberts, Lauren Ash

Savanna Ruedy, Ross Oscar Knight, Danielle Brake

There are signs that the whiteness of yoga is beginning to change–these spaces, for one, but also broader shifts in the culture. This past June, Roberts landed the cover ofYoga Journal. She likens the shift to something like a "revolution": "It almost feels dramatic to name it as such, but it really is when you're taking an entire practice that is hundreds of thousands of years old and using it as a tool to resist oppression, a tool to feel liberated."

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